Cancer vaccine trial patient alive 22 years after being given 6 months to live – WLOS

Cancer vaccine trial patient alive 22 years after being given 6 months to live

by Justin Berger

JAN. 18, 2024 - In 2001, Mary Carol Abercrombie was given just months to live after her cancer metastasized. Then she participated in a melanoma trial with Dr. Tom Wagner in Greenville, South Carolina, and has had no reoccurrence since. (Photo credit: WLOS staff)

ASHEVILLE, N.C. (WLOS)

It was Christmas 2001. Mary Carol Abercrombie had melanoma for a year and it was about to get worse.

My doctors called me and I was like, 'Ooh, this is really bad isnt it, this is not good,'" Abercrombie said. "Both of them said to me, Ill never forget this either, 'You just enjoy Christmas.' I guess that was the first time that I thought, OK, I might not be there to see my son get married. Im a very positive person and that was like the cold water in the face.

Abercrombie's year-long cycle of alpha interferon, a treatment for her melanoma, had just ended.

The side effects were horrendous," she said. "It was hell, actually. As soon as I got off of it, my cancer metastasized, and I found out about it two days before Christmas.

Her doctors told her she only had months left.

But at the time, her oncology surgeon was working on a melanoma trial vaccine with Dr. Tom Wagner in Greenville.

I went in to see him, and Ill never forget, he had a picture of Einstein over his desk. And I thought, Oh, no Im way in out of my league, Abercrombie said. What he told me was he hadnt had anybody survive yet, but the people that he had under his trial, they had lived longer and theyd lived without many side effects. And I was like, 'Sign me up,' because there wasnt anything out there.

Abercrombie was patient No. 3. She got a shot every other month for a year and a half.

Suddenly, her terminal timeline transformed.

With Dr. Wagners vaccine, I was able to go and do, just tired, that was it, Abercrombie said.

She said Wagner told her a story about when he spoke at a convention with other oncology doctors.

He asked his peers a question.

More than 20 years later, she's had no reoccurrences and was able to attend her son's wedding.

Now, she has four grandchildren. They call her Big.

Im called Mary Carol, MC and Big, and Big is definitely my favorite name, she said.

So, 22 Christmases after she was given three to six months to live, a grateful patient still exchanges Christmas cards with the man who changed her life.

Im still here, which is very humbling, to say the least," Abercrombie said. "Theres so much hope out there, and I do think that people like Dr. Wagner, that there is going to be a cure for cancer with early detection and with immunotherapy.

Abercrombie said during her first round of treatment she started viewing frogs as more than just an amphibian.

Frogs can only jump forward," she said. "They cant go backwards; they cant go to the side. They can only go forwards. And I was like, thats a direct message, thats going to be my thing, thats going to be my thing, Lord. Im just going to go forward, no matter whats happening. No matter whats happening, Im just going to take a step forward, a step forward, a step forward."

Then, she said a couple weeks later she went through her jewelry drawer looking for a pin.

There was one of those braided bracelets, like What Would Jesus Do, but it had F R O G, Fully Rely On God," Abercrombie said.

"FROG, I was like, 'Woah, woah and woah.'

In the hospital, without knowing, her friends brought her a stuffed frog.

And when she took the call about her cancer reoccurrence in 2001, it was on her daughter's Kermit the Frog phone.

Hes telling me this bad news, and Im on the phone going, like, this is OK, Im talking on a frog phone, its going to be OK, Abercrombie said.

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Cancer vaccine trial patient alive 22 years after being given 6 months to live - WLOS